- From: Olivier Rossel <olivier.rossel@gmail.com>
- Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2017 23:59:54 +0200
- To: Adrian Gschwend <ml-ktk@netlabs.org>
- Cc: Semantic Web <semantic-web@w3.org>
Three things come to mind from your comments: - you have reached a maturity level with semantic technologies. I am absolutely thrilled to hear that! (And I imagine you must have had a LOT of work to reach that level). Honestly, I am impressed. - RDF can be seen as a typed data transfert technology. Javascript is becoming more and more typed. (yes, Typescript, I look at you :) I see a HUUUUUGE opportunity for N3 and RDFS to become the JSON of Typescript. I hope some people will push in that direction and succeed. (you just need to manage annotations on fields, to serialize/deserialize a graph of objects as N3. Just like OGM with Neo4J.) - Spreadsheets are perfect example of data silos. Making a bridge between them and distant data, especially in companies, sounds a low-cost high-impact option. As far as I know, Microsoft is pushing OData for that. I have never had time to investigate. But basically, a kind of Datao visual query UI available from the "Get and Transform" ribbon of Excel 2016 (https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Get-Transform-in-Excel-2016-881c63c6-37c5-4ca2-b616-59e18d75b4de?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US) would be an instant invitation to anyone to reuse data from others in the company, bootstraping a Linked Data initiative. On Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 5:07 PM, Adrian Gschwend <ml-ktk@netlabs.org> wrote: > On 11.10.17 10:09, Olivier Rossel wrote: > > Hi Olivier, > >> I have felt absolutely no support from the Semantic Web community. > > I think I know where you have been but I would like to give a feedback > as someone that is making a living on Semantic Web. > >> Basically for the following reasons: >> - very few people in the Semantic Web community actually manage >> datasets in operational conditions (so there is no linked data to >> browse, cf http://sparqles.ai.wu.ac.at/availability) > > We do, as do our customers. Just because you don't see them does not > necessarily mean "very few people" are using it. In the end I don't see > any Neo4J datasets online but I don't conclude that no one is using it > just based on that fact. > >> - very few people in the Semantic Web community actually consume >> semantic data in their processes (so noone can evaluate which >> libraries/tools are lacking for a proper consumption of RDF data) > > I do think that there is a problem with dumps someone once converted to > once RDF, interlinked and that was it. Unfortunately quite some projects > like that exist, many of them as outcome of former FP7 EU research > projects. While I was skeptical myself for a while I am convinced that > we now see real traction in governments and organizations moving to > production-ready linked data publication. Unfortunately we all suck a > bit in advertising them accordingly. > > Regarding libraries, I preach for a while that Linked Data needs to be > better in JavaScript stacks and for that we created the RDFJS group some > time ago. The spec there is now basically done and we (Zazuko) released > a first implementation of it: > > https://www.bergnet.org/2017/08/rdf-ext-v1-release/ > > You can find all code on Github. We do a hell lot of other useful stuff > in the JavaScript world, just browse our github repos. And yes, > documentation is again the thing we need to improve. > > http://github.com/zazuko/ > >> But of course our point is to inspire people outside the Semantic Web community. >> And such people/companies have immediate requirements to fullfill. >> So they go the full custom HTML5+JSON way. With pretty amazing results. > We go the HTML5 + JSON-LD way. Also with amazing results :) The graph > might not be that important in the user interface (still helpful though > for many things) but you definitely want a graph-like structure in the > backe-end if you are serious about your data. > >> They know RDF very well, but see no market for that. > Not sure if you heard about the famous quote about Unix: "Those who do > not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly." I believe > this is true for RDF as well. > > I am using Opendatasoft as one of our customers is using it. I pull data > that is barely usable in this form from it and transform it to proper > linked data. That is quite a task but if you want to get data in a > usable form, that's the only way to go. I see platforms like CKAN and > Opendatasoft publishing large data sets but people still have to spend > days to bring it in a form that allows them to use it in their > applications. RDF is the form they actually need and sooner or later > they will come to this conclusion. > > Opendatasoft would be fare more useful if it would be built on RDF. That > is a bit a problem we have, we forget to build the tools "normal" users > can use so in that regard I'm with you. > >> We must understand why. > > RDF comes with a certain complexity. You can either ignore it and build > yet another proprietary silo or embrace it and start to build tooling > that facilitates creation and consumption of RDF data. We as Zazuko > chose the second option and I absolutely believe that this is the > future-oriented one. It does pay our bills and it does and will solve > real problems our customers try to crunch. > > It's not that these customers did not try other stacks before, some > spent two years addressing the problem with non-RDF approaches to figure > out that this will not lead anywhere. But you will not read about those > use cases as they happen behind the firewalls. > >>>From my own point of view, the success of the Semantic Web could come >> with tooling for programmer >> If we manage to provide a few things: >> - a spec & robust implementations for rights management at named graph level > > get the right triplestore and you are done. Not sure what you need a > spec for here. > >> - a spec & robust implementations for SPARQL transactions management >> at HTTP level > > again get the right triplestore and you are done. > >> - a robust OGM (Object-Graph Mapper) in most major languages > > What is an Object-Graph mapper? > >> - a robust REST library to auto-serialize/deserialize RDF (for ex, an >> extension to Jersey > > We do this with Hydra-View, soon to be documented and renamed to Hydra-Box: > > https://github.com/zazuko/hydra-view > > https://github.com/zazuko/wikidata.zazuko.com > > This is work in progress for a customer but what it basically allows is > to hide SPARQL queries behind a hypermedia REST API. All you do is > configure the middleware in JSON-LD and then run it. With JSON-LD > framing you can create JSON every web developer should be able to understand > > BTW we also do build Web frontends that are 100% SPARQL driven, that is > not a problem at all, you just need according tooling. See > http://data.alod.ch/search/ as an example (soon to be extended to 20 > million public archival records) > > If you simply want to get proper JS structures from SPARQL you might for > example check out https://github.com/zazuko/d3-sparql > > Again, it's all our fault that we did not build these tools before. And > yes, that would have been more useful than a "linked data browser", > whatever this means. > > For providing data we did something Pubby-like, see for example: > > https://github.com/zazuko/trifid > > This is the back-end of all apps we build. Public samples: > > * Default view: http://lod.opentransportdata.swiss/didok/8500011 > * Customized for one gov entity in Switzerland: > https://ld.geo.admin.ch/boundaries/municipality/296 > >> - a proper marketing of the N3.js library on the client (honestly, >> how many people even inside our community knows that fabulous lib?) > > Can't say much here as we use it for a long time in rdf-ext. Also you > want to have at RDF-Ext and things like simpleRDF. > >> Basically, we need a stack. >> Why not create RDFonRails, by the way :) > > the future is JavaScript, like it or not. That is where it will or will > not happen with RDF. (And stores that scale but that is taken care of) > >> (btw, Neo4J basically provide 90% of all that, and is pretty >> successful, so may be we should just jump on the bandwagon) > > Neo4J somehow managed to convince people that they are "graph > databases". It's a mediocre product from a company which willingly > spreads FUD about RDF because they know it's the one thing that can > become a problem for them. But I have to give them the credits for > marketing, boy are they good in that. > >> After that, we can again concentrate on data. (especially data inside companies) >> Honestly, noone outside the community understands (or cares) about OWL. >> RDFS+owl:domain/owl:range is enough for a awful LOT of usages. >> (once again, Neo4J provides something quite like that, and it is LOVED >> by IT developpers) > > wrong (about OWL). There are people using it, every day. Just because > you do not see it does not mean it does not happen. I saw developers > with tears of joy once they enabled reasoning in the triplestore. And > why would I use something proprietary like Neo4J if I can get various > products in the RDF domain that implement a standard? > >> What is important and game changers in the outside world is: >> - typing data, and multityping it (:VERYYYYY powerful) > > I don't think I get what you mean here. > >> - merging graphs coming from different sources dealing with the same >> resources for a more capable graph > That's pretty much what we do with RDF all day. > >> What is extremely hard in the outside world: >> - sharing URIs. >> - sharing data, in general >> >> All these points are addressed poorly by the community. Basically >> because we do not do it massively ourselves. > > I have no idea where you see a problem here. RDF is the only standard to > solve these exact problems, forget Neo4J or anything alike for that. And > we do it, every day. > >> But the more important advice I can give after some time spent outside >> the Semantic Web community: >> do not build a browser (you would rebuild datao.net/search.datao.net. >> Believe me, noone cares.), build a fucking awesome add-on for > > on that I'm with you. BTW I do not necessarily consider myself as part > of the academic semantic web community. While I am grateful for a lot of > support I got from some of the people in there, others are not very > welcoming for outsiders like me. > >> Microsoft Excel. >> >> *That* would definitely change the way people deal with data. > > I hear the excel one a lot but I'm convinced most of the time this is > un-reflected daydreaming. What exactly should such a plugin provide in > your opinion? > > > regards > > Adrian
Received on Wednesday, 11 October 2017 22:00:39 UTC